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LINCOLN  ROOM 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


MEMORIAL 

the  Class  of  1901 

founded  by 

HARLAN  HOYT  HORNER 

and 

HENRIETTA  CALHOUN  HORNER 


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THE     NATION'S     LOSS 


A  DISCOURSE 


UPON 


THE    LIFE,  SERVICES,  AND    DEATH 


OF 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN, 

LAXE    PRESIDENT    OF    THE    UNITED    STATES. 


BY 


HIRAM    P.    CROZIER 


Delivered  at  Huntington,  L.  I.,  April  19th,  1S65. 


SECOND     EDITION. 


JOHN  A.  GRAY   &   GREEN,  PRINTERS,  16   &   18   JACOB   STREET. 

1860. 


I  8 1  G> 


THE   NATION'S    LOSS. 


My  Feiends  :  Less  than  one  short  week  ago  we 
were  gathered  in  this  hall,  to  rejoice  and  congratulate 
one  another  for  the  signal  victory  of  our  national  arms, 
boding  the  brighter  victory  of  peace.  Even  while  we 
were  then  speaking  and  pleading  for  forgiveness  to- 
ward the  South  whenever  she  shall  lay  down  her  arms, 
the  assassin  was  doing  his  work  of  death.  The  chief 
head  of  a  a^'eaf  nation  has  been  laid  low.  An  insie:- 
nificant  man,  inspired  by  the  passions  of  a  flying  fiend, 
shoots  the  President  of  thirty  millions  of  people,  when 
this  people,  seemingly,  most  need  his  great  wisdom, 
justness,  mercifulness,  goodness  of  heart,  to  direct  them 
through  the  perils  that  beset  the  state.  We  were  all 
looking  at  the  rainbow  of  a  near  peace,  and  behold  ! 
the  dagger  of  the  assassin.  A  mine  is  sprung  beneath 
us,  the  earth  upheaves,  swallows  up  our  leader,  and 
threatens  to  engulf,  with  him,  the  first  statesman  of 
the  age ;  and  henceforth  Ave  tremble  at  the  possibil- 
ities around  us.  We  know  no  limit  to  evil  plots  and 
traps  after  the  gigantic  evil  consummation  of  the  last 


4  tiie  nation's  loss. 

week.  Patient  investigation  lias  shown  that  the  plot, 
if  not  wide-spread,  was  deep-laid,  and  awful  beyond 
parallel  in  its  infamy.  It  contemplated  the  assassin- 
ation of  every  chief  head  of  the  National  Government, 
hoping  thereby  to  bewilder  and  stun  the  intellect  and 
heart  of  the  great  American  people — to  palsy  its  great 
arm  lifted  in  Avar,  and  during  the  syncope  of  the  na- 
tion, the  paralysis  of  its  war-power,  to  revive  the  stag- 
gering fortunes  of  the  rebellion,  and  compel  a  false 
peace  by  -  recognition  and  separation.  The  plot  so 
awful  has  signally  failed,  although  in  part  so  mourn- 
fully successful.  The  saviour  of  the  country  has  fallen 
that  the  avenger  may  arise  !  The  people,  already  be- 
lieving that  they  had  seen  the  bottom  of  the  rebellion, 
are  suddenly  called  upon  to  look  lower  down  into  the 
frightful  cup  of  horrors  given  them  in  the  murder  of 
their  President  and  the  attempted  murder  of  their  Sec- 
retary of  State ;  and  as  the  first  shot  of  the  rebellion 
against  Sumter  aroused  the  North  and  fused  the 
North,  so  this  last-  stroke  of  rebellion,  through  the 
bloody  hand  of  the  assassin,  will  steel  every  heart, 
nerve  every  arm,  brace  every  will,  quicken  into  life 
every  ounce  of  blood,  and  make  articulate  the  demand 
that  this  rebellion,  with  slavery,  its  first  cause,  its  con- 
tinued inspiration,  and  its  last  fiendish  instigator,  shall 
utterly  and  forever  perish,  and  that  the  principal  and 
conspicuous  leaders  in  this  crime  of  all  crimes  in  his- 


THE   NATION'S   LOSS. 


tory  shall  have  condign  punishment.  When  before 
was  a  man  in  public  life  assassinated  for  his  goodness, 
his  impartial  sense  of  right,  and  truth,  and  justice,  his 
love  of  clemency  ?  William  of  Orange,  "  the  father  of 
his  country,1'  fell  by  the  hand  of  the  assassin,  Baltha- 
zar Gerard,  in  1584,  while  the  little  States  of  Holland 
were  in  the  midst  of  their  great  struggle  with  the  gi- 
gantic power  of  Spain.  But  that  was  almost  three 
hundred  years  ago.  That  was  the  middle  and  last  of 
the  sixteenth  century.  That  was  in  the  days  of  the 
Inquisition,  the  days  of  intolerance,  the  days  of  in- 
trigue, when  court-lying,  bribery,  and  assassination 
were  -the  rule,  not  the  exception.  When  we  look  into 
the  history  of  the  Roman  Empire,  that  great  cauldron 
of  social  forces,  boiling  with  feculent  scum,  we  are  not 
surprised  that  civil  war  should  break  out  between 
Cresar  and  Pompey ;  that  Pomr^ey  should  be  assassin- 
ated ;  that  Caesar  should  fall  by  the  hand  of  Brutus 
and  Cassius  ;  that  men,  palsied  with  fear,  should 
league  together,  form  triumvirates,  and,  calling  their 
league  the  government,  brand  all  their  opposers  as 
public  enemies,  and  mark  them  for  execution.  So 
Cicero  and  many  of  the  best  citizens  of  Rome  fell  vic- 
tims to  Octavius,  Anthony,  and  Lcpidus.  We'  do  not 
wonder  that  monsters  like  Tiberius,  Caligula,  Nero, 
drunk  with  crime  and  blood,  should  be  born  amid 
these  pestilent  social  vapors.     We  see  that  the  times 


6  the  nation's  loss. 

fitted  the  men,  and  the  men  the  times.  The  cruci- 
fixion of  Christ,  coming  into  a  province  of  Rome, 
ceases  to  astonish  us.  The  imprisonment  of  some 
of  his  apostles,  the  beheading  of  John  and  Paul, 
the  ten  persecutions,  were  all  natural  growths  upon 
the  poisoned  soil .  of  a  false  religion,  a  false  state, 
bound  to  shut  out  the  new  and  maintain  the  old. 
That  the  new  and  true  should  come  and  conquer  the 
old  and  the  false,  with  such  tremendous  odds  to  over, 
come,  is  proof  of  -the  amazing  forces  of  the  higher 
faculties  of  human  nature,  and  of  the  immortal  spir- 
itual powers  with  which  they  are  leagued,  and  from 
which  a  deathless  inspiration  comes  to  uplift  and*  save 
mankind.  The  whole  history  and  character  of  this 
war,  beginning  in  bloody  revolt  against  benignant  and 
republican  authority,  and  growing  into  the  barbarism 
of  making  relics  and  charms  out  of  the  bones  of  loyal 
soldiers,  starving  to  death  loyal  prisoners,  massacring 
colored  soldiers,  and  culminating  in  the  assassination 
of  President  Lincoln,  while  aiming  to  strike  down 
every  head  and  paralyze  every  arm  of  the  Govern- 
ment, shows  us,  what  every  page  of  past  history  re- 
peats, that  evil,  falsity,  crime,  oppression,  enthroned 
wrong  of  any  kind,  none  of  these  demons  ever  are  cast 
out  of  a  people  without  tearing  and  rending  them. 
No  great  truth  throws  its  'disinfecting  light  into  the 
depths  of  a  nation's  darkness  and  barbarism,  without 


THE   NATION'S   LOSS.  7 

intensifying  that  light  with  the  halo  of  martyrdom. 
Half  a  million  of  brave  men,  and  the  head  man  of  the 
nation,  crown  the  offering  we  have  already  paid  to  the 
demon  of  slavery  and  false  conservatism,  in  Church 
and  State,  not  yet  fully  cast  out ! 

As  we,  my  friends,  in  sympathy,  gather  around  the 
lifeless  corpse  of  our  beloved  President,  let  us  try  to 
patiently  look  at  his  life,  weigh  his  character  and  offi- 
cial acts,  and  see  what  was  the  "  gift  of  Ghxl "  in  this 
man  to  us,  and  what  is  the  nation's,  loss. 

1.  We  are  not  to  be  curious  about  all  the  little  inci- 
dents of  his  early  and  unofficial  life  at  this  time.  This 
is  the  province  of  history.  It  seems  proper  to  say  that 
he  was  born  obscure,  poor,  and  struggled  in  early  life 
and  early  manhood  for  support  and  social  recognition. 
This  is  said,  not  that  this  is  the  only  country  in  which 
poor  and  obscure  men  can  and  do  rise  to  great  useful- 
ness and  eminence,  but  because  it  seems  a  universal 
law,  with  very  few  exceptions,  that  the  prophets,  lead- 
ers, sages,  heroes,  martyrs,  saviours  of  the  race  shall 
spring  from  the  humble  classes.  The  scholars,  kings, 
and  conservatives  spring  from  the  wealthier  classes. 

All  the  prophets  of  the  Hebrew  nation  but  one 
sprang  up  from  the  soil  of  the  common  people.  But 
one,  Jeremiali  alone,  was  of  the  sacerdotal  race.  He 
wept  with  his  people,  and  perished  in  their  captivity. 
Jesus  was  born  of  a  peasant-girl  and  cradled  in  a  man- 


8  THE   NATION'S   LOSS. 

ger.  Mohammed's  patrimony  was  only  five  camels 
and  one  slave,  and  his  early  life  was  serving  in  a  store 
at  Mecca.  Luther  was  the  son  of  a  poor  miner  of 
Mansfeld,  and  in  his  poverty  sang  for  his  bread  from 
door  to  door  !  Calvin's  father  was  neither  rich  nor 
learned,  but  an  obscure  man  in  Picardv.  Wesley  was 
the  son  of  an  English  clergyman  having  only  the 
living  at  Epworth. 

It  is  no  rare  or  exceptional  thing  that  providential 
great  men  should  arise  from  humble  conditions.  "  God 
hath  chosen  the  weak  things  of  this  world  to  confound 
the  mighty,  ....  and  things  that  are  not,  to  bring  to 
naught  things  that  are."  If  any  extraordinary  mission 
of  a  beneficent  character  has  been  given  of  God  to 
Abraham  Lincoln,  for  the  deliverance  of  this  nation 
from  the  demon  that  has  scourged  it,  and  torn  it,  and 
driven  it  into  the  fury  and  flame  of  civil  Avar,  then  the 
early  poverty,  struggle,  embarrassment,  obscurity  of 
the  great  leader  whom  the  nation  mourns  to-day,  are 
all  in  keeping  with  the  line  of  descent  from  which 
like-minded  men  usually  spring. 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  born  in  Hardin  County,  Ken- 
tucky, February  12,  1809.  He  early  removed  to  San- 
gamon County,  Illinois.  In  1830-81,  as  he  was  attain- 
ing his  majority,  the  whole  region  was  covered  breast- 
high  with  a  snow-storm  ;  winter  wheat  perished,  cattle 
and  horses  died,  the  settlers'  meagre  stock  of  provi- 


THE  NATION'S  LOSS.  9 

sions  ran  out.  "  For  three  mouths,"  the  old  settlers 
said,  "  not  a  warm  suu  shone  upon  the  surface  of  the 
snow."  Communication  from  house  to  house  by  teams 
was  cut  off.  Many  wealthy  settlers  came  near  starv- 
ing ;  poorer  ones  actually  did  starve.  Supplies  were 
sent  from  house  to  house,  and  exchanges  made  by 
brave  and  stout  young  men  on  foot,  able  to  bear  the 
perils  of  the  snow.  In  these  labors  of  simple  human- 
ity, that  prove  the  really  true  and  great-hearted  man 
young  Lincoln  was  active.  The  good  Samaritan,  that 
helps  his  fellow-man  in  trouble,  is  the  all  of  practical 
Christianity.  "  This  is  more  than  all  burnt-offerings 
and  sacrifices."     "  This  do,  and  thou  shalt  live." 

In  1836-7,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  elected  a  member  of  the 
Illinois  Legislature.  The  State  was  radically  pro-slave- 
ry, and  in  both  branches  of  the  General  Assembly  res- 
olutions of  a  strong  pro- slavery  character  having  been 
passed,  you  will  find  a  protest  against  them  on  the 
journals  of  the  House,  dated  March  3,  1837  : 

"  The  undersigned  hereby  protest  against  the  passage  of  the 

same.     They  believe  that  the  institution  of  slavery  is  founded 

on  both  injustice  and  bad  policy;  but  that  the  promulgation  of 

abolition  doctrines  tends  rather  to  increase  than  abate  its  evils. 

(Signed)  "  Dax.  Stoxe, 

"  A.  Llncolx, 
"Representatives  from  the  County  of  Sangamon." 

Here  gleam   the  moral  courage   and   the   political 


10  THE   NATION'S  LOSS. 

prudence  which  both  together  illustrated  Mr.  Lincoln's 
life.  To  say  the  slave-trade  is  piracy  cost  Garrison  his 
liberty  and  a  fine  of  fifty  dollars  in  Baltimore,  in  1832. 
To  discuss  slavery  in  Boston,  in  1836,  cost  him  a  mob. 
To  call  slavery  a  sin  and  a  crime  in  183G,  in  Utica, 
cost  Gerrit  Smith  and  hundreds  a  violent  mob,  which 
followed  them  thirty  miles,  to  Peterboro,  hooting,  and 
yelling,  and  throwing  missiles  and  odorous  eggs  along 
the  Avay.  To  arraign  slavery  in  1846-7,  during  the 
Mexican  War,  cost  mobs  in  Central  New-York.  To 
arraign  slavery  and  Webster's  and  Fillmore's  Fugitive 
Slave  Law  in  1850-1,  cost  mobs  in  New- York,  Boston, 
Philadelphia,  and  in  every  considerable  town  in  the 
land.  To  declare  war  against  slavery,  after  slavery 
has  declared  war  against  the  life  of  the  nation,  has 
cost  riots,  bloodshed,  and  armed  resistance  to  the 
draft.  To  stand  by  the  Government  during  these  four 
years  of  bloody  agony,  and  sweat,  and  almost  death, 
has  cost  menace,  and  misrepresentation,  and  mob  vio- 
lence in  this  town.  Then  think  of  Dan.  Stone  and  A. 
Lincoln,  in  benighted  Illinois,  in  1836-7,  twenty-nine 
years  ago,  putting  on  the  journals  of  the  House  their 
public  protest :  "  We  believe  that  the  institution  of 
slavery  is  founded  on  both  injustice  and  bad  policy." 
Courage  like  that  is  the  stuff  out  of  which  God  makes 
Presidents  for  revolutionary  times. 

In  1816-7,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  a  member  of  the  Thir- 


THE   NATION'S   LOSS.  11 

tietli  Congress.  This  was,  perhaps,  the  ablest  and 
stormiest  Congress  that  ever  assembled  in  our  coun- 
try. Debates  ran  high  between  Whigs  and  democrats 
on  Tariffs,  River  and  Harbor  Improvements,  the  Eights 
of  Petition,  the  Abolition  of  Slavery  in  the  District  of 
Columbia,  and  that  great  piece  of  national  wickedness, 
the  Mexican  War.  Mr.  Lincoln's  first  vote  was  in 
favor  of  the  Harbor  and  River  Improvement  Bill. 
The  vote  was  given  in  favor  of  these  resolutions  : 

"llesolved,  That  if,  in  the  judgment  of  Congress,  it  be  neces- 
sary to  improve  the  navigation  of  a  river,  to  expedite  and  render 
secure  the  movements  of  our  army,  and  save  from  delay  and  loss 
our  arms  and  munitions  of  war,  Congress  has  the  power  to  im- 
prove such  river. 

"Resolved,  That  if  it  be  necessary  to  the  preservation  of  the 
lives  of  our  seamen,  repairs,  safety,  or  maintenance  of  our  ves- 
sels of  war,  to  improve  a  harbor  or  inlet,  either  on  our  Atlantic 
or  Lake  coast,  Congress  has  the  power  to  make  such  improve- 
ment." 

These  resolutions,  the  very  essence  of  wise  states- 
manship, were  laid  upon  the  table,  Mr.  Lincoln  voting 
for  them. 

The  next  day  Mr.  Giddings  presented  a  memorial 
from  certain  persons  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  ask- 
ing Congress  to  repeal  all  laws  upholding  the  slave, 
trade  in  the  District.  Mr.  Giddings  moved  to  refer 
the  memorial  to  the  Judiciary  Committee,  with  instruc- 


12  THE   NATION'S   LOSS. 

tions  to  inquire  into  the  constitutionality  of  all  laws 
by  which  slaves  are  held  as  property  in  the  District  of 
Columbia,     Mr.  Lincoln  voted  for  the  resolution. 

The   Mexican   War. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  opposed  to  the  Mexican  War  from 
principle — opposed  to  the  declaration  of  war  against 
Mexico  by  the  President  of  the  United  States,  and  on 
December  22,  1847,  he  introduced  an  elaborate  yet 
concise  preamble  and  set  of  resolutions  of  inquiry,  crit- 
icising the  Messages  of  President  Polk,  and  throwing 
the  responsibility  for  the  first  aggressions  upon  the 
administration,  for  sending  a  hostile  force  across  the 
boundary-line  in  opposition  to  the  advice  of  General 

• 

Taylor,  Avho  said  to  the  President :  "  That,  in  his  opin 
ion,  no  such  movement  was  necessary  to  the  defense 
or  protection  of  Texas."  The  war  was  a  Democratic 
war ;  but,  nevertheless,  after  the  President  had  com- 
menced the  war,  a  Whig  House  of  Representatives,  by 
a  vote  of  192  to  14,  voted  sixteen  million  dollars  for 
supplies,  Mr.  Lincoln  voting  for  the  bill. 

When  the  war  was  over,  and  new  territory  was  ac- 
quired from  Mexico  for  indemnity,  Mr.  Lincoln  voted, 
with  Clay,  Corwin,  Webster,  and  the  great  lights  of 
the  Whig  party,  to  shut  slavery  from  all  the  new  ter- 
ritories. So,  in  August,  1847,  when  the  bill  came  up 
for  the  organization  of  the  Territory  of  Oregon,  a  mo- 


THE   NATION'S   LOSS.  13 

tion  was  made  to  strike  out  that  part  of  the  bill  which 
extended  the  Jeffersonian  proviso,  known  as  the  ordi- 
nance of  1787,  over  Oregon  Territory.  That  ordinance 
excluded  slavery  from  all  the  then  North- Western  Ter- 
ritories. Mr.  Lincoln  voted,  with  one  hundred  and 
thirteen  other  members,  to  retain  the  ordinance. 

The   Gott   Resolution. 

On  the  21st  of  December,  1848,  Mr.  Gott  offered  in 
the  House  the  followins;  resolution  : 

"Whereas,  The  traffic  now  prosecuted  in  this  metropolis  of 
the  Republic,  in  human  beings  as  chattels,  is  contrary  to  natural 
justice  and  the  fundamental  principles  of  our  political  system, 
and  is  notoriously  a  reproach  to  our  country  throughout  Christ- 
endoni,  and  a  serious  hindrance  to  the  progress  of  republican 
liberty  among  the  nations  of  the  earth  ;  therefore, 

"Hesolved,  That  the  Committee  for  the  District  of  Columbia 
be  instructed  to  repoi't  a  bill,  as  soon  as  practicable,  prohibiting 
the  slave-trade  in  said  District." 

Here  Mr.  Lincoln's  policy  ruled  him  for  once — not 
the  hitherto  uniform  principle  of  his  life.  He  forsook 
his  party — forsook  men  like  Ashmun,  Bingham,  Dick- 
inson, Giddings,  .Greeley,  Hale,  and  voted  with  the  op- 
position— with  such  men  as  Botts,  Crozier  of  Tennes- 
see, Pendleton,  Stephens,  and  Toombs.  He  voted 
against  the  abolition  of  the  slave-trade  in  the  capital 
where  he  was  assassinated.     Aaron  and  Moses,  that 


14  THE   NATION'S  LOSS. 

had  led  the  children  of  Israel  for  years  in  the  wilder- 
ness and  through  their  various  vicissitudes,  "both  died 
on  the  borders  of  the  promised  land — one  on  Mount 
Hor,  the  other  on  Mount  Nebo.  Neither  were  allowed 
to  enter  it  for  one  sin  against  God.  But  the  peo- 
ple went  forward  under  new  leaders  and  possessed  it. 
I  am  not  superstitious — not  given  to  believe  in  special 
providences,  only  as  all  providences  are  special.  But 
certainly  I  believe  this  great  people  are  goiug  forward 
to  possess  a  free  land,  and  certainly  we  know  that  he 
who  has  visibly  led  us  thus  far  leads  us  no  more. 
The  ways  of  Go'd  are  past  finding  out. 

The  bill  passed  the  House  by  a  vote  of  08  to  88, 
Mr.  Lincoln  having  no  part  nor  lot  in  voting  to  free 
the  capital  of  the  nation  from  the  sin  and  crime  of  the 
slave-trade.     Said  the  National  Era  : 

"  Men  will  wonder,  twenty-five  years  hence,  how  eighty-eight 
men,  in  an  American  Congress,  could  stand  up  before  God  and 
virtually  vote  for  the  continuance  of  the  trade  in  human  beings 
in  the  capital  of  the  foremost  Republic  in  the  world." 

It  is  less  than  twenty  years  since  this  vote  was 
given,  and  lo  !  what  hath  God  wrought ! 

On  the  16th  January,  1849,  the  Gott  resolution 
against  the  slave-trade  in  the  District  of  Columbia  was 
again  before  the  House,  a  motion  to  reconsider  having 
been  previously  entertained.     Mr.  Lincoln  now,  by  the 


THE  NATION'S  LOSS.  15 

courtesy  of  liis  colleague,  Mr.  Went  worth,  who  had 
the  floor,  offered  a  substitute  for  the  Gott  resolution. 
It  provided  : 

"  1.  That  no  person  not  then  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  nor 
owned  there,  nor  hereafter  born  there,  should  be  held  in  slavery- 
there. 

"  2.  That  no  person  so  held,  or  owned,  or  born  a  slave  in  the 
District,  shall  be  held. as  a  slave  out  of  the  District;  save  that 
officers  of  the  United  States  Government  there,  on  government 
duties,  might  bring  their  servants  as  slaves  with  them,  and  re- 
turn without  impairing  their  rights. 

"  3.  That  ail  children  born  of  slave  mothers,  within  said  Dis- 
trict, on  or  after  January  1,  1850,  shall  be  free,  and  shall  be  rea- 
sonably supported  and  educated  by  their  respective  owners  until 
they  arrive  at  —  age,  when  they  shall  be  entirely  free. 

"  4.  That  all  persons  then  held  as  slaves  in  the  District  of  Co. 
lumbia  shall  so  remain  at  the  will  of  their  owners,  provided  said 
owners  do  not  elect  to  sell  said  persons,  for  their  full  value,  to 
the  United  States.  The  President,  Secretary  of  State,  and  Sec- 
retary of  the  Treasury  were  made  a  board  for  determining  such 
value. 

"  5.  The  municipal  authorities  in  "VVashiugton  and  Georgetown 
were  required  to  arrest  and  deliver  up  all  fugitive  slaves  escap- 
ing into  the  District. 

"  6.  This  act  was  to  take  effect  only  on  condition  that  it  was 
approved  by  a  majority  of  the  electors  of  the  District." 

You  will  see  that  policy  predominates  over  princi- 
ple in  this  hill — that  expediency  is  put  before  right. 
It  is  not  a  bill  at  all,  in  any  of  the  ordinary  features 


16  THE   NATION'S  LOSS. 

of  legislation.  It  is  simply  an  enabling  act  for  the 
electors  of  the  District  of  Columbia,  to  enable  them, 
if  tliey  so  voted,  to  sell  out,  for  the  full  value,  their 
slaves  to  the  Government  of  the  United  States.  So 
late  as  1858,  in  his  great  debate  with  Mr.  Douglas, 
which  placed  Mr.  Lincoln  in  the  very  front  rank  as  a 
leader,  a  ready  debater,  a  statesman,  and  a  patriot,  he 
frankly  put  himself  on  record  before  the  world  as  "  not 
pledged  to  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District  of 
Columbia,  and  not  in  favor  of  the  unconditional  repeal 
of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law."  I  have  been  patient  and 
particular  on  this  point  for  two  reasons ;  first,  it  is 
fitting  that  the  truth  should  be  spoken ;  second,  this 
bondage  of  Mr.  Lincoln  to  what  he  honestly  deemed 
constitutional  obligations,  will  disarm  his  enemies 
when  they  charge  him  with  abolitionism,  and  also  serve 
as  a  landmark  from  which  we  may  trace  the  growth 
of  his  convictions  and  character.  No  man  but  the 
wavering  man,  the  unstable  man,  the  insincere  man,  is 
ever  injured  by  the  comparison  of  his  present  with  his 
past  life.  The  good  man  grows  ;  the  bad  man  stands 
still,  or,  attempting  to,  "  like  a  crab  goes  backward." 
The  true  man  sees  the  new  light,  and  sees  old  things 
in  the  new  relations  which  new  light  always  discovers. 
The  false  man,  "  having  eyes,  sees  not ;  having  ears, 
hears  not,"  simply  because  he  has  chosen  not  to  see  and 
hear !     This  was  the  sin  of  the  Jews — not  that  they 


THE   NATION'S   LOSS.  17 

did  not  see  Christ  before  he  came,  but  they  would  not 
see  him  after  lie  came.  The  very  works  which  he 
wrought  they  charged  to  Beelzebub,  the  prince  of 
devils.  This  is  the  sin  of  the  South,  and  of  the  mis- 
guided opponents  of  the  Government  all  over  the  South 
and  North  at  this  hour.  And  for  this  sin  alone  the 
whole  land  is  blasted  with  war  and  shrouded  with 
mourning ! 


o 


Public   Lands. 

Before  leaving  Congress,  Mr.  Lincoln  put  himself  on 
record  in  favor  of  the  Homestead  Bill.  He  voted  for 
Mr.  McClellan's  Land  Bill,  crude  as  it  was,  because, 
he  said,  he  was  willing  to  give  the  public  lands  to  the 
people  rather  than  to  sj3eculators.  In  Congress  he 
was  true,  as  lie  believed  then,  to  his  anti-slavery  prin- 
ciples, always  voting  against  the  extension  of  slavery 
iir  the  Territories,  standing  with  such  statesmen  as 
Webster  and  Clay.  On  the  Mexican  war  he  acted 
with  the  Whig  party,  refusing  to  justify  the  war  itself, 
but  voting  supplies  for  it  that  the  war  debt  might  be 
liquidated.  He  steadily  and  earnestly  opposed  the 
annexation  of  Texas,  and  labored  with  all  his  powers 
in  behalf  of  the  "  Wilmot  Proviso." 

Ten  years  in  so-called  private  life.  In  the  National 
Convention  of  1848,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  a  member,  and 
advocated  the  nomination  of  General  Zachary  Taylor, 

2 


18  THE   NATION'S   LOSS. 

and  sustained  the  nomination  by  an  active  canvass  in 
Illinois  and  Indiana.  He  sought  no  rewards  from  the 
Government  for  his  labors,  but  settled  down  to  the 
hard  work  of  his  profession  of  law  from  1849  to  1854, 
losing  his  interest  in  politics,  when  the  repeal  of  the 
Missouri  Compromise,  and  the  Kansas  and  Nebraska 
villainies  brought  him  before  the  public,  and  roused 
all  the  slumbering  energies  of  his  great  nature.  Cir- 
cumstances don't  make  men.  God  makes  them;  but 
circumstances  discover  them.  George  "Washington 
would  have  been  George  Washington  had  there  been 
no  American  Revolution.  He  would  have  been  known, 
however,  only  as  a  practical  surveyor,  a  large  and 
thrifty  farmer,  a  good  neighbor,  a  true  husband  and 
friend.  All  his  qualities  of  command,  of  patience,  of 
hope,  of  patriotism,  that  have  made  him,  like  William 
of  Orange,  his  great  prototype,  «  the  father  of  his 
country,"  were  brought  out  in  the  furnace  of  the 
American  Revolution.  When  there  is  need  of  great 
men  they  are  sure  to  be  produced.  The  political  con. 
vulsions  of  1850-54  made  Abraham  Lincoln  widely 
known  as  emphatically  one  of  the  very  ablest  debaters 
in  the  land ;  and  opened  up  the  way  for  his  first  nomi- 
nation for  the  Presidency  in  1860.  Those  who  in  1860 
asked  the  question, "  Who  is  Abraham  Lincoln  V  mere- 
ly proclaimed  their  ignorance  of  what  lie  was.  His 
historian  says : 


THE   NATION'S   LOSS.  19 

"  Fully  three  fourths  of  the  ability  and  the  unwearying  labor 
which  resulted  in  the  redemption  of  Illinois,  and  the  election  of 
Lyman  Trumbull  to  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  should  be 
awarded  to  Abraham  Lincoln.  He  confronted  Mr.  Douglas  at 
every  point  throughout  that  greatest  State  of  the  West — con- 
founded his  sophistries,  answered  his  arguments,  impaled  his 
shabby  theory  of  squatter  sovereignty !  A  revolution  swept  the 
State.  Mr.  Lincoln  pressed  the  slavery  issue  upon  the  people 
of  Central  and  Southern  Illinois — largely  made  up  of  emigrants 
from  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  Virginia,  and  North-Carolina — with 
all  the  powers  of  his  great  mind.  He  carried  every  thing  be- 
fore him.  For  the  first  time,  Illinois  had  a  Republican  Legisla- 
ture. The  election  came  on,  and  Mr.  Lincoln,  after  uniting  all 
the  strength  of  his  party  on  repeated  ballots  for  the  high  honor 
of  United  States  Senator,  went  to  his  own  friends  and  desired 
them  to  drop  his  name,  and  unite  on  Judge  Trumbull.  He  thus 
secured  by  an  act  of  generous  self-sacrifice  a  triumph  for  the 
cause  of  right,  and  an  advocate  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate  not 
inferior  in  zeal  for  the  principles  of  republicanism  to  any  mem- 
ber of  that  body." 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  offered  the  nomination  for  Gover- 
nor by  the  anti-Nebraska  party  in  1854 ;  but  he  de- 
clined in  favor  of  Mr.  Bissell. 

In  1858  came  the  greatest  senatorial  contest  ever 
waged  on  this  continent,  between  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr. 
Douglas.  Mr.  Lincoln  again  put  forth  great  exertions 
and  great  talents  as  a  debater,  and  won  in  the  popular 
election,  while  Mr.  Douglas  secured  the  legislative  tri- 
umph.    He  impaled  Mr.  Douglas  on  his  own  double 


20  THE   NATION'S   LOSS. 

doctrine  of  the  Dred  Scott  decision  and  popular  soy 
ereignty.     Mr.  Lincoln's  friends  told  Mm  at  Freeport : 

"  That  if  Mr.  Douglas  was  cornered  on  the  Dred  Scott  de- 
cision, he  would  throw  the  decision  overboard  and  take  up  pop- 
ular sovereignty,  and  that,  they  said,  would  make  him  Senator. 
'  That  may  be,'  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  his  large  gray  eye  twinkled ; 
'  but  if  he  takes  that  shoot,  he  never  can  be  President.' " 

The  great  progress  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  mind  on  the 
question  of  human  rights  is  distinctly  traced  in  this 
senatorial  contest.  No  man  ever  had  a  more  wily  or 
more  unscrupulous  adversary  than  was  Senator  Doug- 
las. Mr.  Douglas,  of  course,  sought  to  arouse  popular 
prejudice  against  Mr.  Lincoln  by  charges  of  negro 
equality,  rung  with  such  persistent  niisreju'esentation 
by  smaller  men  all  over  the  land.  Mr.  Lincoln's  reply 
was : 

"  I  hold  that  the  negro  is  as  much  entitled  to  all  the  riukts 
enumerated  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence — '  the  right  to 
life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness ' — as  the  white  man.  I 
agree  with  Judge  Douglas  ;  he  is  not  my  equal  in  many  respects  ; 
certainly  not  in  color ;  perhaps  not  in  moral  or  intellectual  en- 
dowment. But  in  the  right  to  eat  the  bread,  without  the  leave 
of  any  one  else,  which  his  own  hand  earns,  he  is  my  equal,  and 
the  equal  of  Judge  Douglas,  and  the  equal  of  every  living  man" 

Here  Mr.  Lincoln's  early  training  is  overcome.  Here 
the  principle  of  chattelhood,  so  painfully  manifest  in 
his   own   bill   for   the   regulation  of  slavery   in   the 


THE   NATION'S   LOSS.  21 

• 

District  of  Columbia,  six  years  before — 1848- — is  man- 
fully pushed  away.  Here  the  simple  manhood  of  the 
negro  slave,  however  weak  or  despised  that  manhood 
may  be,  is  recognized,  and  the  duty  of  Government 
maintained  to  protect  it,  with  all  its  essential  rights, 
as  quick  as  it  would  protect  Judge  Douglas,  Mr.  Lin- 
coln himself,  or  any  other  living  man.  Here  expe- 
diency and  policy,  the  bane  of  politics,  are  brushed 
away,  and  solid  principle  put  in  their  stead.  Here  the 
corner-stone  is  laid  for  that  unyielding  character  which 
made  him  the  leader  of  a  great  people  through  the 
Ked  Sea  of  their  distresses  to  the  borders  of  the  prom- 
ised land  ! 

In  Mr.  Lincoln's  speech  to  the  convention  which 
nominated  him  for  the  Senate,  were  these  words  of 
truth  and  prophecy  so  often  used,  both  by  his  enemies 
and  friends : 

"  A  house  divided  against  itself  can  not  stand.  I  believe  this 
Government  can  not  endure  permanently  half  slave  and  half 
free.  I  do  not  expect  the  Union  to  be  dissolved  ;  I  do  not  ex- 
pect the  house  to  fall ;  but  I  do  expect  it  will  cease  to  be  divided. 
It  will  become  all  the  one  thing,  or  all  the  other." 

Pkesident   of   the   United   States. 

In  the  Republican  Convention  which  met  at  Chicago, 
May,  1860,  there  were  present  four  hundred  and  sixty- 
five  delegates.     On  the  third  ballot   Mr.  Lincoln  re- 


22     •  the  nation's  loss. 

ceived  three  hundred  and  fifty-four  votes,  and  then,  on 
motion  of  Mr.  Evarts,  of  New- York,  the  nomination 
for  the  high  office  of  President  of  the  United  States 
was  made  unanimous. 

His  election  was  secured  through  a  vigorous  and  ex- 
citing campaign.  It  was  the  moral  uprising  of  a  great 
people  rebuking  slavery  propagandise,  the  Lecompton 
swindle,  the  Dred  Scott  infamy,  the  Kansas  tyrannies 
and  cheats,  the  sugar-coated  name  of  Democracy.  Not 
a  man  in  the  nation  had  done  more  to  secure  the  tri- 
umph than  Mr.  Lincoln  himself,  working  with  might 
and  main  in  the  West  years  before  he  was  thought  of 
as  standard-bearer ;  and  even  when  he  had  no  chance 
of  election  as  Governor  of  Illinois,  because  his  politi- 
cal principles  would  not  yield  to  the  prejudices  of  his 
people.  Mr.  Douglas  yielded  and  failed.  Mr.  Lincoln 
had  faith  in  God,  faith  in  man,  faith  in  the  future,  and 
triumphed.  No  man  in  the  nation  was  more  worthy 
of  the  honors  of  victory !  No  man  in  the  nation 
could  have  so  safely  carried  us  over  the  first  arch  of 
the  bridge  from  the  old  civilization  to  the  new  ! 

His  route  to  the  capital  was  an  ovation.  He  was 
needed  there.  Weakness,  incapacity,  treason,  disinte- 
gration, were  visible  in  every  part  of  the  Government 
when  Mr.  Lincoln  took  the  reins.  Secession  was 
already  accomplished.  The  rebel  government  was  in- 
augurated at  Montgomery,  February  eighteenth,  1861, 


THE   NATIONS   LOSS.  23 

by  the  election  of  Jefferson  Davis  and  Alexander  H. 
Stephens.  Davis  issued  a  flaunting  address,  in  which 
he  declared  the  day  of  compromise  past.  (He  spoke 
the  truth  for  once — it  is  past.) 

"The  South,"  he  said,  "  will  maintain  her  position,  and  make 
all  who  oppose  her  smell  Southern  powder  and  feel  Southern  steel, 
if  coercion  is  persisted  in.  He  felt  sure  of  the  result.  It  might 
be  they  would  have  to  encounter  inconveniences  at  the  beginning  / 
but  he  had  no  doubts  of  the  final  issue." 

We  still  think  he  spoke  the  truth.  They  have  en- 
countered inconveniences  •  and  we  think  Mr.  Davis,  a 
fleeing  vagabond  from  his  own  capital,  with  cause  and 
army  and  country  lost,  "  has  no  doubt  of  the  final 
issue." 

Twelve  days  before  Mr.  Lincoln  was  inaugurated  in 
Washington,  having  escaped  assassination  in  Balti- 
more, treason  was  inaugurated  in  Montgomery.  Forty 
days  after  he  had  taken  the  oath  to  preserve,  protect, 
and  defend  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  Fort 
Sumter  was  bombarded  by  order  of  the  rebel  conspir- 
acy. Civil  war  was  begun  by  the  South,  President 
Lincoln  patiently  but  firmly  acting  on  the  defensive. 
His  inaugural  address  was  a  marvel  of  magnanimity, 
containing  not  one  word  of  reproach  to  the  South — 
not  one  menace ;  not  one  threat.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  leaned  toward  them  ;  it  took  them  by  the  hand  ;  it 


24  the  nation's  loss. 

assured  them  of  certain  protection  of  all  their  old 
rights  under  the  Constitution.  It  closed  with  these 
words  of  warning  and  entreaty,  without  a  parallel  in 
any  state  paper  in  the  history  of  the  world  : 

"Li  your  hands,  my  dissatisfied  fellow-countrymen,  and  not 
mine,  is  the  momentous  issue  of  civil  war.  The  Government 
will  not  assail  you.  You  can  have  no  conflict  without  heing 
yourselves  the  aggressors.  You  have  no  oath  registered  in 
heaven  to  destroy  the  Government,  while  I  have  the  most  solemn 
one  '  to  preserve,  protect,  and  defend  it.' 

"  I  am  loth  to  close.  We  are  not  enemies,  but  friends.  We 
must  not  he  enemies.  Though  passion  may  have  strained,  it 
must  not  break  our  bonds  of  affection. 

"  The  mystic  cords  of  memory,  stretching  from  every  battle- 
field and  patriot-grave  to  every  living  heart  and  hearth-stone  all 
over  this  broad  land,  will  yet  swell  the  chorus  of  the  Union, 
when  again  touched,  as  surely  they  will  be,  by  the  better  angels 
of  our  nature." 

This  is  a  faithful  father  imploring  his  willful  child- 
ren. A  great,  tender,  human  heart,  yearning  over  the 
dangers  that  threaten  his  country.  Christ  wept  over 
Jerusalem,  and  they  repaid  his  sympathy  with  cruci- 
fixion. President  Lincoln  yearned  over  the  South,  and 
the  South  repaid  his  sympathy  with  civil  war,  firing 
upon  his  country's  flag,  shedding  innocent  blood  in  the 
streets  of  Baltimore,  menacing  the  very  capital,  and 
threatening  to  overrun  and  engulf  the  whole  land  ! 


THE  nation's  loss.  25 

TnE   Issue   Accepted. 

On  the  fifteenth  of  April,  1861,  proclamation  and 
call  for  seventy-five  thousand  men  was  made,  "  to  sup- 
press treasonable  combinations,  and  cause  the  laws  to 
be  duly  executed.'1  This  proclamation,  and  the  immi- 
nent danger  of  the  Government,  united  the  North. 
The  very  first  day  after  the  call,  Massachusetts  had  her 
Sixth  regiment  completely  ecpripped,  on  the  road  to 
the  national  capital.  Those  troops  were  fired  upon  by 
a  mob  in  Baltimore.  Governor  Hicks,  of  Maryland, 
and  Mayor  Brown,  of  Baltimore,  asked  that  no  more 
troops  be  sent  through  Baltimore.  President  Lincoln 
yielded,  and  sent  them  by  way  of  Annapolis. 

On  the  nineteenth  of  April,  a  temperate  proclama- 
tion of  blockade  was  made,  and  the  nation  stood 
calmly  on  the  defensive,  while  the  South  was  making 
the  most  vigorous  preparations  for  war. 

Seeing  this.  President  Lincoln  convened  Congress  on 
the  fourth  of  July,  1861,  and  asked  for  four  hundred 
thousand  men  and  four  hundred  million  dollars.  Con- 
gress acted  with  the  utmost  promptness  and  liberality. 
They  passed  acts  approving  and  legalizing  -all  that 
President  Lincoln  had  done  on  his  own  responsibility 
to  save  the  Government.  They  passed  the  Confisca- 
tion Act  by  a  vote  of  ninety-three  to  fifty-five,  although 
John  C.  Breckinridge,  and  such  men,  since  open  trai- 


26  the  nation's  loss. 

tors,  were  in  their  seats.  Tliey  passed  a  resolution  de- 
claring it  to  be  "  no  part  of  the  duty  of  the  soldiers  of 
the  United  States  to  capture  and  return  fugitive 
slaves."  They  voted  five  hundred  thousand  men  and 
five  hundred  million  dollars  for  the  war  for  the 
Union.  Thus  was  President  Lincoln  not  only  indorsed 
by  the  people,  but  commended,  justified,  and  more 
than  sustained.  One  hundred  thousand  more  men 
and  one  hundred  million  dollars  more  money  than 
he  called  for  were  promptly  given  him  by  the  people- 
On  the  sixth  of  March,  1862,  President  Lincoln 
sent  a  special  message  to  Congress  recommending  a 
joint  resolution  to  compensate  all  States  for  their  abo- 
lition of  slavery,  as  a  war  measure  and  a  measure  of 
public  safety.  The  resolution  to  compensate  was 
passed  in  both  houses  and  signed  by  the  President ; 
and  in  President  Lincoln's  correspondence  with  both 
Generals  Hunter  and  Fremont,  who  had  both  declared 
martial-law  and  the  abolition  of  slavery,  he  gives  as 
the  reason  for  the  revocation  of  the  emancipation  part 
of  their  military  proclamations  the  fact  that  they  had 
transcended  the  laws  of  Congress,  which  he,  as  Execu- 
tive, was  to  execute  and  not  to  obstruct.  He  had  not 
yet  made  up  his  mind  as  to  his  power,  under  the  Con- 
stitution, to  free  the  slaves,  and  he  therefore  revoked 
the  proclamations  of  Generals  Hunter  and  Fremont, 
and  held  out  the  olive-branch  of  comjiensated  emanci 


the  nation's  loss.  27 

pation.  Next  to  the  fatal  mistake  of  commencing  war 
at  all,  the  refusal  of  the  slave  States  to  accept  of  this 
proposition  was  their  awful  blunder. 

In  August  twenty-second,  1862,  President  Lincoln 
wrote  his  brief  and  pertinent  letter  to  Horace  Greeley, 
defining  his  policy,  of  which  Mr.  Greeley  and  many 
others  were  hitherto  uncertain.     In  that  letter  he  said : 

"  My  paramount  object  is  to  save  the  Union,  and  not  either 
to  save  or  destroy  slavery.  If  I  could  save  the  Union  without 
freeing  any  slave,  I  would  do  it.  If  I  could  do  it  by  freeing  all 
the  slaves,  I  would  do  it.     And  if  I  could  do  it  by  freeing  some 

and  leaving  others  alone,  I  would   do   that I  shall 

try  to  correct  errors  when  shown  to  be  errors  ;  and  I  shall  adopt 
new  views  as  fast  as  they  shall  appear  to  be  true  views. 

"  I  intend  no  modification  of  my  oft-expressed  personal  wish, 
that  all  men,  everywhere,  could  be  free."  * 

On  the  twenty-second  September,  1862,  one  month 
from  the  date  of  his  letter  to  Mr.  Greeley,  the  Presi- 
dent issued  the  conditional  "  Proclamation  of  Emanci- 
pation," which,  by  being  rejected  by  the  rebels,  sealed 
the  fate  of  human  slavery  on  this  continent,  and  ren- 
ders its  speedy  extinction  by  the  war  power  of  the 
Government  certain.  On  the  first  day  of  January, 
1863,  the  supplemental  proclamation  came,  naming  all 
those  States  and  parts  of  States  in  rebellion  where 
the  emancipation  proclamation  should  take  effect.  It 
pledged  the  executive,  military,  and  naval  power  of 


28  THE  nation's  loss. 

the  Government  to  maintain  their  freedom.  It  en- 
joined the  freedmen  to  abstain  from  all  violence,  un- 
less in  necessary  self-defense.  It  recommended  them 
to  labor  for  wages  wherever  allowed.  It  informed 
them  that  they  would  be  received  into  the  armed 
service  of  the  United  States,  and  closed  with  this 
solemn  appeal : 

"And  upon  this  act,  sincerely  believed  to  be  an  act  of  justice 
warranted  by  the  Constitution,  upon  military  necessity,  I  in- 
voke the  considerate  judgment  of  mankind  and  the  gracious 
favor  of  Almighty  God." 

My  friends,  it  is  no  part  of  my  intention,  or  of  the 
duty  of  this  hour,  to  enter  into  a  minute  or  critical 
history  of  President  Lincoln's  conduct  of  the  war. 
Your  judgments  are  as  well  informed  as  mine  on  this 
subject.  His  re-nomination  and  reelection  by  one  of 
the  largest  popular  majorities  ever  given  a  candidate 
in  this  country,  sweeping  every  thing,  from  Maine  to 
California,  except  three  States,  is  proof  that  the  great 
body  of  the  American  people  approve  of  his  conduct 
of  the  war ;  and  the  deliberate,  impartial  judgment  of 
history  will  be,  that  the  nation  has  suffered  more  from 
his  clemency  than  his  severity ;  more  from  his  good- 
ness of  heart,  and  simple  faith  in  his  kind,  than  from 
any  fancied  strain  of  power ;  more  from  the  absence 
of  martial  law  than  from  its  abundant  presence ;  more 


THE  nation's  loss.  29 

from  the  lack  of  arbitrary  arrests,  than  from  the  multi- 
plication of  them ;  more  from  traitors  all  over  the 
North,  and  all  along  the  war-path  to  the  South,  who 
have  been  unmolested,  than  from  the  denial  of  the 
great  writ  of  habeas  corpus  to  the  few  who  have  been 
imprisoned. 

"  In  war,  laws  are  silent,"  is  a  proverb  of  Roman 
history.  The  safety  of  the  Republic  is  the  supreme 
law.  The  Constitution  itself  provides  for  all  the  ex- 
traordinary measures  which  President  Lincoln  saw 
needful  for  the  public  welfare ;  and  history  will  mar- 
vel that  in  a  civil  war  which  marshaled  two  millions 
of  men  in  the  field — which  lasted  four  years,  at  least — 
which  overran  more  territory  than  half  of  all  Europe 
so  little  excess  was  committed,  and  so  little  severity 
was  dealt  out. 

President  Lincoln  took  up  into  his  long  arms — his 
capacious  mind — his  great  heart,  all  the  jarring  ele- 
ments of  factions,  all  the  differences  of  his  friends,  all 
the  necessities  of  his  enemies.  He  was  patient  with 
all  congressional  differences,  silent  under  all  attacks, 
forgiving  to  a  fault  as  a  child.  He  was  approachable 
by  the  humblest  citizen  in  the  Republic.  You  not 
only  approached  his  bodily  frame,  he  allowed  you  to 
approach  his  interior  personality.  You  could  not  fail 
to  believe  in  his  sympathy  for  all  that  is  just,  and 
good  and  true.     He,  more  than  any  other  man  we  have 


80  THE   NATION'S   LOSS. 

ever  raised,  was  the  Chief  Magistrate  of  the  people, 
and  not  of  a  party.  He  found  time  to  receive  and 
listen  to  all  sorts  of  delegations,  from  all  sorts  of 
people  and  societies — ministers,  laymen,  Quakers,  col- 
ored people — all  were  taken  into  his  kindly  considera- 
tion. Like  William  of  Orange,  "  he  bore  the  sorrows 
of  his  people  with  a  smiling  face."  He  had  not  only 
time  to  visit  the  poor,  sick  soldiers  in  the  camps  and 
hospitals  around  Washington,  but  he  had  time  to 
write  hopeful  and  thankful  letters  to  the  workingmen 
of  Lancashire  and  London,  thanking  them  for  their 
genuine  sympathy  in  our  cause,  and  returning  the 
sympathy  of  a  great  human  heart  for  their  distresses, 
occasioned  by  our  strict  blockade  and  the  stoppage  of 
their  cotton-mills.  He  was  a  laboring  man.  He  had 
no  patrimony  but  honesty,  industry,  frugality.  When 
a  boy  only  eight  years  of  age,  he  helped  to  cut  the 
road  for  the  ox-team  that  was  transporting  his  father's 
earthly  all  into  the  wilds  of  Indiana.  From  the  lowest 
social  condition  to  the  highest  social  condition  of  the 
world  he  arose,  by  the  purity  of  his  purpose,  the  dis- 
cipline of  his  mind,  and  the  majesty  of  his  will.  Ele- 
vation to  power  had  no  intoxication  for  him.  He  was 
no  party  man.  He  neither  punished  his  political  ene- 
mies, nor  rewarded  his  political  friends,  as  such.  He 
sought  for  the  light  man  in  the  right  place.  With  all 
the  horrors  of  war  around  him,  he  never  became  intol- 


THE   NATION'S  LOSS.  81 

erant,  revengeful,  or  bloodthirsty.  He  drove  through 
the  pickets  0f  the  army  of  the  Potomac  to  pardon  a 
boy  condemned  to  death  for  sleeping  on  his  post. 
With  the  smoke  of  battle  around  him,  and  the  roar  of 
hostile  cannon  in  his  ear,  he  all  the  time  kept  an  open 
ear  for  peace.  He  went  to  meet  the  enemy,  and  tell 
him  peace,  by  cessation  of  hostilities  on  the  part  of 
the  rebellion,  would  be  followed  by  a  liberal  construc- 
tion of  the  pardoning  power.  After  victory  brought 
thousands  of  his  proud  enemies  at  his  feet  he  exulted 
in  no  hope  of  personal  revenge,  but  exulted  in  the 
hope  of  a  near  peace  for  his  distracted  country.  He 
died  with  forgiveness  on  his  tongue,  and  forgiveness  in 
his  heart.  He  was  simple  as  a  child  in  his  habits, 
temperate,  chaste,  devout,  religious.  Though  no  sec- 
tarian, he  was  a  firm  believer  in  God,  and  a  great  be- 
liever in  man.  He  died  a  martyr  to  his  country,  and 
a  martyr  to  his  faith  in  human  kind.  He  did  not 
believe  that  even  slavery  could  educate  a  man  up  to 
the  depravity  of  killing  him. 

Such  my  friends,  very  imperfectly  and  hastily  told, 
is  the  man  this  nation  mourns  to-dav  as  it  never 
mourned  a  loss  before.  Such  is  the  friend  of  the  high 
and  the  low,  the  rich  and  the  poor,  the  white  and  the 
black,  the  learned  and  the  ignorant,  the  free  and  the 
bond,  who  will  be  mourned  by  the  struggling  millions 
of  Europe  and  the  world,  when  they  shall  hear  of  his 


32  the  nation's  loss, 

untimely  death.  When  the  despair  of  our  grief  is 
over,  and  the  panoply  of  mourning  which  hangs  over 
the  land  is  laid  aside,  may  we  better  mourn  him  by 
emulating  his  simple,  homely  virtues  and  his  lofty 
patriotism  !  May  God  bless  the  menfory  of  Abraham 
Lincoln,  and  grant  that  his  blood,  shed  by  unnatural 
and  wicked  hands,  may  cement  the  union  of  these 
States,  founded  upon  equal  liberty  for  all  men,  and 
may  that  union  and  his  memory  live  together  long  as 
the  stars  shall  endure  ! 


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